Last Meeting: February 19th

Welcome, Invocation, Thought for the Day

President Glen Daggs (or was it Prez-In-Waiting
Alan Baer) called the meeting to order. X-Prez
Mark Howe again showed his commitment to Truth,
Justice & the American Way by leading the club in the
Pledge of Allegiance. While Stony Stonework led
the invocation last week, there was no invocation this week.
Your scribe heard a ‘prayer or thanksgiving’ that
we had avoided that religious stuff causing your scribe to
wonder if you can every have too much, “peace, freedom
and justice?

A note from our scribe: From You may have noticed that last
week’s
Flywheel was a little short on details, again proving that
sometimes life is ‘bigger than life’ and can blindside
you when you least expect it. For better or worse, some rather
illegible notes from the meeting of the 12th have fallen into
your scribe’s
possession and at least some of the happenings of that lost
meeting will sprinkled throughout this Flywheel.

Rotarians with Guests

Mike Arronian, reported to be a Red Badge
Rookie candidate was Herb Cole’s guest.John Clay and Heather Culp visited
the club on the 12th.

Announcements

Prez-In-Waiting Alan Baer asked everyone
to plan on participating in the joint “All I-80Clubs” St.
Patrick’s Day dinner hosted Wednesday evening by the
Berkeley Club at Hs. Lordships at the Berkeley marina. Alan
also asks that all attending pay the $35 fee for dinner.
The dinner is on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th and
replaces our meeting of March 19th . In other words, No meeting
March 19th.

Alan also invited everyone to check out the Program Calendar
on the Flywheel Website so that you can better plan whom
you want to invite on which Friday to see and consider Richmond
Rotary. Members are reminded that the club pays
for the lunch of guests who are invited to consider joining
Rotary.

Monique le Conge invited the members to
the Library Foundation Fundraiser March 3rd at the Bermuda
Room from 5 – 7 PM. It will be Sweet & Savory and
you can get more information at http://rplf.org/sweet.htm

John ‘The Enforcer’ Nicol announced that members
without their Rotary pin will be fined $2.00.

Sidney “Of the Internet’ Chauvin announced
he had Rotary pins for sale for $5.00.

Recognitions

While Prez Glenn offered Recognition Amnesties to anyone in
the crowd because his Recognizers weren’t present, we
fall back to last week:Dandy Don (who calls himself the Menehune) Lau announced
with great pleasure and fanfare his 21st wedding anniversary
to Shelly and he donated 100 smackers to the Rotary Fund to
Save the Planet. Don was equally happy that his daughter is
soon to be married and he is on his way to San Diego to look
for wedding venues. Foreshadowing Happy & Sad $$$ Don was
also happy about the award the Richmond Library Bookmobile
just received.

Happy and Sad Dollars

Nick Despota was Happy to be able to associate
with so many smart and informed people, obvious products
of regular library use, and he seconded Monique’s recommendation
to attend the Library Foundation Fund Raiser March 3rd...

David Brown was Happy to be off to Puerto
Viagra for a holiday with the other Brown’s (Erle & Phyllis
Brown).

Like Don Lau, Paul Allen was Happy about
the Richmond Library Bookmobile. Good to see you Paul.

Jim Young was Happy David Brown was
so ‘mechanical’ in his representation of that
other bank.

Herb Cole had Sad $$ as he thinks more
member need to visit Elof Granberg as he
can no longer travel to our meetings. See Herb for more information.

Mark Howe was Happy that the America’s
Cup is now in San Francisco and is hopeful that Larry Ellison
will allow the America’s Cup Race to take place on
the Bay.

Henry Moe was Happy that the Salesian
high School Basketball Team and AGAIN beaten St. Mary’s,

John Nicol was Happy to remind the club
that past member Hal Halkinian (sp) foreshadowed the America’s
Cup coming to San Francisco and invested accordingly.

Norm's Nonsense

Not another lawyer joke...

A priest and a lawyer died and went to heaven on the same day, and St. Peter showed them both to their rooms. The lawyer's room was extremely large and lavish, but the priest's room was a little ten-by-ten cell with one window and a cot. The priest said, "St. Peter, I have spent my entire life serving God, why do I get a crummy room and the lawyer gets the best room?"

St. Peter replied, "Well, we get thousands of priests up here, but this is the first lawyer we've ever had."

PROGRAM of FEBRUARY 12th

Unionization, Corruption and the Mexican Labor Market

The Program of Jim Young introduced Rotary Ambassadorial
Scholar Galen Ages who researched this subject for his Master’s
Degree at the Autonomous Free University of Mexico City. Galen
actually corrected Jim Young’s ‘Peace Scholar’ introduction,
and in the process thanked Rotary for the two fine long term
programs that promote better international understanding and
peace.

Galen made the following points:

The Mexican labor market works essentially as a “closed
shop”, against the general wishes of unions and labor
organizers who want an ‘open shop’, in order
to create more democratic decision making and transparency.

The Mexican labor system is corrupt and the corruption
is actively supported by entrenched special interests in
all levels of government including the judicial system.

The apparent goal is to keep Mexican wages artificially
low by creating sweetheart contracts with large international
industrial investors that have been pouring hundreds of billions
of dollars into the Mexican economy under NAFTA.

The corruption is not modern and goes back to the Mexican
Revolution of the early 20th century and the establishment
of the political party ‘PRI’ which ruled Mexico
as a single party state longer than the Communist Party ruled
Russia.

The PRI lost its monopoly on Mexican politics with the
election of past President Vincente Fox, but not much has
changed.

Artificially low wages in Mexico, which often are not ‘living
wages’ by Mexican standards are a primary contributor
to illegal Mexican immigration to the United States.

Thank you Galen Ages for an illuminating and informative program
about our Neighbor to the South. And, thank you for being
a Rotary Ambassador Scholar.

Jim Young introduced program finder, Michael Gill, but before
giving up the microphone prattled on about the need for
ethics beyond words like the 4 Way Test, sitting the news of
the day that included the embezzlement of tens of millions
of Health Savings Account dollars in Colorado and Tiger Woods ‘apology’. Michael
Gill introduced his Maters professor, Dr. David Gill (no relation),
as the teacher of one of the best classes he has ever taken
and a graduate of both Cal and USC.

PROGRAM OF February 19Th

Business Ethics 101:
Beyond Damage Control

David
Gill started by noting that ‘ethics/values' are
taught in classes from junior high school through post doctorial
management program. Gill considers most of these courses “Ethics
1.0” because they are too narrowly focused on reactive
management, negative blame identification and “damage
control”. Gill’s core thesis is that we need to
move beyond this narrow Harvard Business School case study
approach to the creation of businesses that promote a culture
of ethics and excellence, “Ethics 2.0”. Gill
made the following points during his presentation

Gill described ethical/excellent management as wanting
to avoid the need for damage control by; identifying damage
control causing issues; developing and promoting practices
that avoid problems; synchronizing those practices with the
organization’s mission and vision, developing a culture
based on mission, values and practices; all this systematically
supported by organizational leadership.

Gill said that such organizations then establish their
own internal quality control that; identifies new ‘damage
control’ issues before they happen; educates the
organization about the problems, avoidance strategies and ‘best
practices’ for avoidance and damage control if it is
needed; implements this strategy throughout the organization,
and then; systematically evaluates its success at problem
ID, education and evaluation. All of this is again
supported by organizational leadership.

David concluded his program by emphasizing that business
ethics is more than ‘damage control’ and staying
out of jail. It is about how we treat each other, quality
and excellence.

David invited the members to consider his book on the subject, “its
About Excellence, Building Ethically Healthy Organizations”,
and his free monthly on-line magazine (Zin) “Ethixbiz.com” @ http://www.ethixbiz.com .

The Q&A portion of the program was full of noteworthy
questions and comments from our Rotarians, again proving if
you want the really good stuff, you have to be there. Notes
could not captor the flavor and breadth of the commentary.

Thank you David Gill for a thought provoking program. Thank
you Michael Gill for finding such high quality speakers for
Rotary.

- Pinch-hitting scribe, Jim Young

Upcoming Programs

March 5
Mark Peterson, Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney
Visits Richmond Rotary to discuss how the DA’s
Office works to prosecute and prevent crime in our county.

March 12
The founder of Noah’s Bagels visits Richmond
Rotary to discus the joys of a financial success & the
importance of living a life of meaning.

March 17(Note: a Wednesday!)
The regular Friday meeting shifts to Hs Lordship’s
in Berkeley as the Berkeley Club hosts all the I-80 clubs
for a special meeting.

Have a suggestion for a speaker?
Please pass along the name and contact information
to Jim Young.